Solar Tsunami Headed Towards Earth(Aug 03 2010)
Category Video | Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010
The Sun’s surface erupted early Sunday morning, blasting tons of plasma into interplanetary space directly towards the Earth.That wall of ionized atoms should hit the planet tonight, say scientists, creating a geomagnetic storm and a spectacular light show and possibly threatening satellites in orbit.Solar tsunamis were observed before with the SOHO spacecraft, but this is the first time they have been observed in four different wavelengths corresponding to four different temperatures, enabling the team to see how the wave moved through the different layers of the solar atmosphere. This was possible because STEREO observes images at all four wavelengths at a much higher time cadence than SOHO.